The Project Gutenberg eBook, Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, by Anthony Trollope This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil A Tale of Australian Bush-Life Author: Anthony Trollope Release Date: August 3, 2002 [eBook #5642] [Last updated: December 7, 2020] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL*** E-text prepared by Nicole Apostola, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team HTML file produced by David Widger HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIA Tale of Australian Bush-Life By Anthony Trollope CONTENTS HARRY HEATHCOTE CHAPTER I. — GANGOIL. CHAPTER II. — A NIGHT’S RIDE. CHAPTER III. — MEDLICOT’S MILL. CHAPTER IV. — HARRY HEATHCOTE’S APPEAL. CHAPTER V. — BOSCOBEL. CHAPTER VI. — THE BROWNBIES OF BOOLABONG. CHAPTER VII. — “I WISH YOU’D LIKE ME.” CHAPTER VIII. — “I DO WISH HE WOULD COME!” CHAPTER IX. — THE BUSH FIGHT. CHAPTER X. — HARRY HEATHCOTE RETURNS IN TRIUMPH. CHAPTER XI. — SERGEANT FORREST. CHAPTER XII. — CONCLUSION. HARRY HEATHCOTE CHAPTER I. — GANGOIL. Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man, twenty-four years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight o’clock in the evening. He was married, and with him and his wife lived his wife’s sister. At that somewhat late hour he walked in among the two young women, and another much older woman who was preparing the table for dinner. The wife and the wife’s sister each had a child in her lap, the elder having seen some fifteen months of its existence, and the younger three months. “He has been out since seven, and I don’t think he’s had a mouthful,” the wife had just said. “Oh, Harry, you must be half starved,” she exclaimed, jumping up to greet him, and throwing her arm round his bare neck. “I’m about whole melted,” he said, as he kissed her. “In the name of charity give me a nobbler. I did get a bit of damper and a pannikin of tea up at the German’s hut; but I never was so hot or so thirsty in my life. We’re going to have it in earnest this time. Old Bates says that when the gum leaves crackle, as they do now, before Christmas, there won’t be a blade of grass by the end of February.” “I hate Old Bates,” said the wife. “He always prophesies evil, and complains about his rations.” “He knows more about sheep than any man this side of the Mary,” said her husband. From all this I trust the reader will understand that the Christmas to which he is introduced is not the Christmas with which he is intimate on this side of the equator—a Christmas of blazing fires in-doors, and of sleet amid snow and frost outside—but the Christmas of Australia, in which happy land the Christmas fires are apt to be lighted—or to light themselves—when they are by no means needed. The young man who had just returned home had on a flannel shirt, a pair of mole-skin trowsers, and an old straw hat, battered nearly out of all shape. He had no coat, no waistcoat, no braces, and nothing round his neck. Round his waist there was a strap or belt, from the front of which hung a small pouch, and, behind, a knife in a case. And stuck into a loop in the belt, made for the purpose, there was a small brier-wood pipe. As he dashed his hat off, wiped his brow, and threw himself into a rocking-chair, he certainly was rough to look at, but by all who understood Australian life he would have been taken to be a gentleman. He was a young squatter, well known west of the Mary River, in Queensland. Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, who owned 30,000 sheep of his own, was a magistrate in those parts, and able to hold his own among his neighbors, whether rough or gentle; and some neighbors he had, very rough, who made it almost necessary that a man should be able to be rough also, on occasions, if he desired to live among them without injury. Heathcote of Gangoil could do all that. Men said of him that he was too imperious, too masterful, too much inclined to think that all things should be made to go as he would have them. Young as he was, he had been altogether his own master since he was of age— and not only his own master, but the master also of all with whom he was brought into contact from day to day. In his life he conversed but seldom with any but those who were dependent on him, nor had he done so for the last three years. At an age at which young men at home are still subject to pastors and masters, he had sprung at once into patriarchal power, and, being a man determined to thrive, had become laborious and thoughtful beyond his years. Harry Heathcote had been left an orphan, with a small fortune in money, when he was fourteen. For two years after that he had consented to remain quietly at school, but at sixteen he declared his purpose of emigrating. Boys less than himself in stature got above him at school, and he had not liked it. For a twelvemonth he was opposed by his guardian; but at the end of the year he was fitted forth for the colony. The guardian was not sorry to be quit of him, but prophesied that he would be home again before a year was over. The lad had not returned, and it was now a settled conviction among all who knew him that he would make or mar his fortune in the new land that he had chosen. He was a tall, well-made young fellow, with fair hair and a good-humored smile, but ever carrying in his countenance marks of what his enemies called pig-headedness, his acquaintances obstinacy, and those who loved him firmness. His acquaintances were, perhaps, right, for he certainly was obstinate. He would take no man’s advice, he would submit himself to no man, and in the conduct of his own business preferred to trust to his own insight than to the experience of others. It would sometimes occur that he had to pay heavily for his obstinacy. But, on the other hand, the lessons which he learned he learned thoroughly. And he was kept right in his trade by his own indefatigable industry. That trade was the growth of wool. He was a breeder of sheep on a Queensland sheep-run, and his flocks ran far afield over a vast territory of which he was the only lord. His house was near the river Mary, and beyond the river his domain did not extend; but around him on his own side of the river he could ride for ten miles in each direction without getting off his own pastures. He was master, as far as his mastership went, of 120,000 acres—almost an English county—and it was the pride of his heart to put his foot off his own territory as seldom as possible. He sent his wool annually down to Brisbane, and received his stores, tea and sugar, flour and brandy, boots, clothes, tobacco, etc., once or twice a year from thence. But the traffic did not require his own presence at the city. So self-contained was the working of the establishment that he was never called away by his business, unless he went to see some lot of highly bred sheep which he might feel disposed to buy; and as for pleasure, it had come to be altogether beyond the purpose of his life to go in quest of that. When the work of the day was over, he would lie at his length upon rugs in the veranda, with a pipe in his mouth, while his wife sat over him reading a play of Shakspeare or the last novel that had come to them from England. He had married a fair girl, the orphan daughter of a bankrupt squatter whom he had met in Sydney, and had brought her and her sister into the Queensland bush with him. His wife idolized him. His sister-in-law, Kate Daly, loved him dearly—as she had cause to do, for he had proved himself to be a very brother to her; but she feared him also somewhat. The people about the Mary said that she was fairer and sweeter to look at even than the elder sister. Mrs. Heathcote was the taller of the two, and the larger-featured. She certainly was the higher in intellect, and the fittest to be the mistress of such an establishment as that at Gangoil. When he had washed his hands and face, and had swallowed the very copious but weak allowance of brandy-and-water which his wife mixed for him, he took the eldest boy on his lap and fondled him. “By George!” he said, “old fellow, you sha’n’t be a squatter.” “Why not, Harry?” asked his wife. “Because I don’t want him to break his heart every day of his life.” “Are you always breaking yours? I thought your heart was pretty well hardened now.” “When a man talks of his heart, you and Kate are thinking of loves and doves, of course.” “I wasn’t thinking of loves and doves, Harry,” said Kate. “I was thinking how very hot it must have been to-day. We could only bear it in the veranda by keeping the blinds always wet. I don’t wonder that you were troubled.” “That comes from heaven or Providence, or from something that one knows to be unassailable, and therefore one can put up with it. Even if one gets a sun-stroke one does not complain. The sun has a right to be there, and is no interloper, like a free-selector. I can’t understand why free-selectors and mosquitoes should have been introduced into the arrangements of the world.” “I s’pose the poor must live somewheres, and ‘squiters too,” said Mrs. Growler, the old maid-servant, as she put a boiled leg of mutton on the table. “Now, Mr. Harry, if you’re hungered, there’s something for you to eat in spite of the free-selectors.” “Mrs. Growler,” said the master, “excuse me for saying that you jump to conclusions.” “My jumping is pretty well-nigh done,” said the old woman. “By no means. I find that old people can jump quite as briskly as young. You have rebuked me under the impression that I was grudging something to the poor. Let me explain to you that a free-selector may be, and very often is, a rich man. He whom I had in my mind is not a poor man, though I won’t swear but what he will be before a year is over.” “I know who you mean, Mr. Harry; you mean the Medlicots. A very nice gentleman is Mr. Medlicot, and a very nice old lady is Mrs. Medlicot. And a deal of good they’re going to do, by all accounts.” “Now, Mrs. Growler, that will do,” said the wife. The dinner consisted of a boiled leg of mutton, a large piece of roast beef, potatoes, onions, and an immense pot of tea. No glasses were even put upon the table. The two ladies had dressed for dinner, and were bright and pretty as they would have been in a country house at home; but Harry Heathcote had sat down just as he had entered the room. “I know you are tired to death,” said his wife, “when I see you eat your dinner like that.” “It isn’t being tired, Mary; I’m not particularly tired. But I must be off again in about an hour.” “Out again to-night?” “Yes, indeed.” “On horseback?” “How else? Old Bates and Mickey are in their saddles still. I don’t want to have my fences burned as soon as they’re put up. It’s a ticklish thing to think that a spark of fire any where about the place might ruin me, and to know at the same time that every man about the run and every swagsman that passes along have matches in their pocket. There isn’t a pipe lighted on Gangoil this time of the year that mightn’t make a beggar of you and me. That’s another reason why I wouldn’t have the young un a squatter.” “—I declare I think that squatters have more trouble than any people in the world,” said Kate Daly. “—Free-selectors have their own troubles too, Kate,” said he. It must be explained as we go on that Heathcote felt that he had received a great and peculiar grievance from the hands of one Medlicot, a stranger who had lately settled near him, and that this last remark referred to a somewhat favorable opinion which had been expressed about this stranger by the two ladies. It was a little unfair, as having been addressed specially to Kate, intending as it did to imply that Kate had better consider the matter well before she allowed her opinion of the stranger to become dangerously favorable; for in truth she had said no more than her sister. “The Medlicots’ troubles will never trouble me, Harry,” she said. “I hope not, Kate; nor mine either more than we can help.” “But they do,” said Mary. “They trouble me, and her too, very much.” “A man’s back should be broad enough to bear all that for himself,” said Harry. “I get ashamed of myself when I grumble, and yet one seems to be surly if one doesn’t say what one’s thinking.” “I hope you’ll always tell me what you’re thinking, dear.” “Well, I suppose I shall—till this fellow is old enough to be talked to, and to be made to bear the burden of his father’s care.” “By that time, Harry, you will have got rich, and we shall all be in England, sha’n’t we?” “I don’t know about being rich, but we shall have been free-selected off Gangoil.—Now, Mrs. Growler, we’ve done dinner, and I’ll have a pipe before I make another start. Is Jacko in the kitchen? Send him through to me on to the veranda.” Gangoil was decidedly in the bush—according to common Australian parlance, all sheep stations are in the bush, even though there should not be a tree or shrub within sight. They who live away from the towns live a “bush life.” Small towns, as they grow up, are called bush towns, as we talk of country towns. The “bush,” indeed, is the country generally. But the Heathcotes lived absolutely and actually in the bush. There are Australian pastures which consist of plains on which not a tree is to be seen for miles; but others are forests, so far extending that their limits are almost unknown. Gangoil was surrounded by forest, in some places so close as to be impervious to men and almost to animals in which the undergrowth was thick and tortuous and almost platted, through which no path could be made without an axe, but of which the greater portions were open, without any under-wood, between which the sheep could wander at their will, and men could ride, with a sparse surface of coarse grass, which after rain would be luxuriant, but in hot weather would be scorched down to the ground. At such times—and those times were by far the more common—a stranger would wonder where the sheep would find their feed. Immediately round the house, or station, as it was called, about one hundred acres had been cleared, or nearly cleared, with a few trees left here and there for ornament or shade. Further afield, but still round the home quarters, the trees had been destroyed, the run of the sap having been stopped by “ringing” the bark; but they still stood like troops of skeletons, and would stand, very ugly to look at, till they fell, in the course of nature, by reason of their own rottenness. There was a man always at work about the place—Boscobel he was called—whose sole business was to destroy the timber after this fashion, so that the air might get through to the grasses, and that the soil might be relieved from the burden of nurturing the forest trees. For miles around the domain was divided into paddocks, as they were there called; but these were so large that a stranger might wander in one of them for a day and never discover that he was inclosed. There were five or six paddocks on the Gangoil run, each of which comprised over ten thousand acres, and as all the land was undulating, and as the timber was around you every where, one paddock was exactly like another. The scenery in itself was fine, for the trees were often large, and here and there rocky knolls would crop up, and there were broken crevices in the ground; but it was all alike. A stranger would wonder that any one straying from the house should find his way back to it. There were sundry bush houses here and there, and the so-called road to the coast from the wide pastoral districts further west passed across the run; but these roads and tracks would travel hither and thither, new tracks being opened from time to time by the heavy wool drays and store wagons, as in wet weather the ruts on the old tracks would become insurmountable. The station itself was certainly very pretty. It consisted of a cluster of cottages, each of which possessed a ground-floor only. No such luxury as stairs was known at Gangoil. It stood about half a mile from the Mary River, on the edge of a creek which ran into it. The principal edifice, that in which the Heathcotes lived, contained only one sitting-room, and a bedroom on each side of it; but in truth there was another room, very spacious, in which the family really passed their time; and this was the veranda which ran along the front and two ends of the house. It was twelve feet broad, and, of course, of great length. Here was clustered the rocking-chairs, and sofas, and work-tables, and very often the cradle of the family. Here stood Mrs. Heathcote’s sewing-machine, and here the master would sprawl at his length, while his wife, or his wife’s sister, read to him. It was here, in fact, that they lived, having a parlor simply for their meals. Behind the main edifice there stood, each apart, various buildings, forming an irregular quadrangle. The kitchen came first, with a small adjacent chamber in which slept the Chinese man-cook, Sing Sing, as he had come to be called; then the cottage, consisting also of three rooms and a small veranda, in which lived Harry’s superintendent, commonly known as Old Bates, a man who had been a squatter once himself, and having lost his all in bad times, now worked for a small salary. In the cottage two of the rooms were devoted to hospitality when, as was not unusual, guests, known or unknown, came that way; and here Harry himself would sleep, if the entertainment of other ladies crowded the best apartments. Then at the back of the quadrangle was the store, perhaps of all the buildings the most important. In here was kept a kind of shop, which was supposed, according to an obsolete rule, to be open for custom for half a day twice a week. The exigencies of the station did not allow of this regularity; but after some fashion the shop was maintained. Tea was to be bought there, and sugar, tobacco, and pickles, jam, nails, boots, hats, flannel shirrs, and mole-skin trowsers. Any body who came might buy, but the intention was to provide the station hands, who would otherwise have had to go or send thirty miles for the supply of their wants. Very little money was taken here, generally none. But the quantity of pickles, jam, and tobacco sold was great. The men would consume large quantities of these bush delicacies, and the cost would be deducted from their wages. The tea and sugar, and flour also, were given out weekly, as rations—so much a week—and meat was supplied to them after the same fashion. For it was the duty of this young autocratic patriarch to find provisions for all who were employed around him. For such luxuries as jam and tobacco the men paid themselves. On the fourth side of the quadrangle was a rough coach-house, and rougher stables. The carriage part of the establishment consisted of two “buggies”—so called always in the bush—open carriages on four wheels, one of which was intended to hold two and the other four sitters. A Londoner looking at them would have declared them to be hopeless ruins; but Harry Heathcote still made wonderful journeys in them, taking care generally that the wheels were sound, and using ropes for the repair of dilapidations. The stables were almost unnecessary, as the horses, of which the supply at Gangoil was very large, roamed in the horse paddock, a comparatively small inclosure containing not above three or four hundred acres, and were driven up as they were wanted. One horse was always kept close at home with which to catch the others; but this horse, for handiness, was generally hitched to a post outside the kitchen door. Harry was proud of his horses, and was sometimes heard to say that few men in England had a lot of thirty at hand as he had, out of which so many would be able to carry a man eighty miles in eight hours at a moment’s notice. But his stable arrangements would not have commanded respect in the “Shires.” The animals were never groomed, never fed, and many of them never shod. They lived upon grass, and, Harry always said, “cut their own bread-and-butter for themselves.” Gangoil was certainly very pretty. The veranda was covered in with striped blinds, so that when the sun shone hot, or when the rains fell heavily, or when the mosquitoes were more than usually troublesome, there might be something of the protection of an inclosed room. Up all the posts there were flowering creepers, which covered the front with greenery even when the flowers were wanting. From the front of the house down to the creek there was a pleasant failing garden—heart-breaking, indeed, in regard to vegetables, for the opossums always came first, and they who followed the opossums got but little. But the garden gave a pleasant home-like look to the place, and was very dear to Harry, who was, perhaps, indifferent in regard to pease and tomatoes. Harry Heathcote was very proud of the place, for he had made it all himself, having pulled down a wretched barrack that he had found there. But he was far prouder of his wool-shed, which he had also built, and which he regarded as first and foremost among wool-sheds in those parts. By- and-by we shall be called on to visit the wool-shed. Though Heathcote had done all this for Gangoil, it must be understood that the vast extent of territory over which his sheep ran was by no means his own property. He was simply the tenant of the Crown, paying a rent computed at so much a sheep. He had, indeed, purchased the ground on which his house stood, but this he had done simply to guard himself against other purchasers. These other purchasers were the bane of his existence, the one great sorrow which, as he said, broke his heart. While he was speaking, a rough-looking lad, about sixteen years of age, came through the parlor to the veranda, dressed very much like his master, but unwashed, uncombed, and with that wild look which falls upon those who wander about the Australian plains, living a nomad life. This was Jacko—so called, and no one knew him by any other name—a lad whom Heathcote had picked up about six months since, and who had become a favorite. “The old woman says as you was wanting me?” suggested Jacko. “Going to be fine to- night, Jacko?” Jacko went to the edge of the veranda and looked up to the sky. “My word! little squall a-coming,” he said. “I wish it would come from ten thousand buckets,” said the master. “No buckets at all,” said Jacko. “Want the horses, master?” “Of course. I want the horses, and I want you to come with me. There are two horses saddled there; I’ll ride Hamlet.” CHAPTER II. — A NIGHT’S RIDE. Harry jumped from the ground, kissed his wife, called her “old girl,” and told her to be happy, and got on his horse at the garden gate. Both the ladies came off the veranda to see him start. “It’s as dark as pitch,” said Kate Daly. “That’s because you have just come out of the light.” “But it is dark—quite dark. You won’t be late, will you?” said the wife. “I can’t be very early, as it’s near ten now. I shall be back about twelve.” So saying, he broke at once into a gallop, and vanished into the night, his young groom scampering after him. “Why should he go out now?” Kate said to her sister. “He is afraid of fire.” “But he can’t prevent the fires by riding about in the dark. I suppose the fires come from the heat.” “He thinks they come from enemies, and he has heard something. One wretched man may do so much when every thing is dried to tinder. I do so wish it would rain.” The night, in truth, was very dark. It was now midsummer, at which time with us the days are so long that the coming of the one almost catches the departure of its predecessor. But Gangoil was not far outside the tropics, and there were no long summer nights. The heat was intense; but there was a low soughing wind which seemed to moan among the trees without moving them. As they crossed the little home inclosure and the horse paddock, the track was just visible, the trees being dead and the spaces open. About half a mile from the house, while they were still in the horse paddock, Harry turned from the track, and Jacko, of course, turned with him. “You can sit your horse jumping, Jacko?” he asked. “My word! jump like glory,” answered Jacko. He was soon tried. Harry rode at the bush fence—which was not, indeed, much of a fence, made of logs lengthways and crossways, about three feet and a half high—and went over it. Jacko followed him, rushing his horse at the leap, losing his seat and almost falling over the animal’s shoulders as he came to the ground. “My word!” said Jacko, just saving himself by a scramble; “who ever saw the like of that?” “Why don’t you sit in your saddle, you stupid young duffer?” “Sit in my saddle! Why don’t he jump proper? Well, you go on. I don’t know that I’m a duffer. Duffer, indeed! My word!” Heathcote had turned to the left, leaving the track, which was, indeed, the main road toward the nearest town and the coast, and was now pushing on through the forest with no pathway at all to guide him. To ordinary eyes the attempt to steer any course would have been hopeless. But an Australian squatter, if he have any well-grounded claim to the character of a bushman, has eyes which are not ordinary, and he has, probably, nurtured within himself, unconsciously, topographical instincts which are unintelligible to the inhabitants of cities. Harry, too, was near his own home, and went forward through the thick gloom without a doubt, Jacko following him faithfully. In about half an hour they came to another fence, but now it was too absolutely dark for jumping. Harry had not seen it till he was close to it, and then he pulled up his horse. “My word! why don’t you jump away, Mr. Harry? Who’s a duffer now?” “Hold your tongue, or I’ll put my whip across your back. Get down and help me pull a log away. The horses couldn’t see where to put their feet.” Jacko did as he was bid, and worked hard, but still grumbled at having been called a duffer. The animals were quickly led over, the logs were replaced, and the two were again galloping through the forest. “I thought you were making for the wool-shed,” said Jacko. “We’re eight miles beyond the wool-shed,” said Harry. They had now crossed another paddock, and had come to the extreme fence on the run. The Gangoil pastures extended much further, but in that direction had not as yet been inclosed. Here they both got off their horses and walked along the fence till they came to an opening, with a slip panel, or movable bars, which had been Heathcote’s intended destination. “Hold the horses, Jacko, till I come back,” he said. Jacko, when alone, nothing daunted by the darkness or solitude, seated himself on the top rail, took out a pipe, and struck a match. When the tobacco was ignited he dropped the match on the dry grass at his feet, and a little flame instantly sprang up. The boy waited a few seconds till the flames began to run, and then putting his feet together on the ground stamped out the incipient fire. “My word!” said Jacko to himself, “it’s easy done, anyway.” Harry went on to the left for about half a mile, and then stood leaning against the fence. It was very dark, but he was now looking over into an inclosure which had been altogether cleared of trees, and which, as he knew well, had been cultivated and was covered with sugar-canes. Where he stood he was not distant above a quarter of a mile from the river, and the field before him ran down to the banks. This was the selected land of Giles Medlicot—two years since a portion of his own run, which had now been purchased from the government—for the loss of which he had received and was entitled to receive no compensation. And the matter was made worse for him by the fact that the interloper had come between him and the river. But he was not standing here near midnight merely to exercise his wrath by straining his eyes through the darkness at his neighbor’s crops. He put his finger into his mouth to wet it, and then held it up that he might discover which way the light breath of wind was coming. There was still the low moan to be heard continually through the forest, and yet not a leaf seemed to be moved. After a while he thought he caught a sound, and put his ear down to the ground. He distinctly heard a footstep, and rising up, walked quickly toward the spot whence the noise came. “Who’s that?” he said, as he saw the figure of a man standing on his side of the fence, and leaning against it, with a pipe in his month. “Who are you?” replied the man on the fence. “My name is Medlicot.” “Oh, Mr. Medlicot, is it?” “Is that Mr. Heathcote? Good-night, Mr. Heathcote. You are going about at a late hour of the night.” “I have to go about early and late; but I ain’t later than you.” “I’m close at home,” said Medlicot. “I am, at any rate, on my own run,” said Harry. “You mean to say that I am trespassing?” said the other; “because I can very soon jump back over the fence.” “I didn’t mean that at all, Mr. Medlicot; any body is welcome on my run, night or day, who knows how to behave himself.” “I hope I’m included in that list.” “Just so; of course. Considering the state that every thing is in, and all the damage that a fire would do, I rather wish that people would be a little more careful about smoking.” “My canes, Mr. Heathcote, would burn quite as quickly as your grass.” “It is not only the grass. I’ve a hundred miles of fencing on the run which is as dry as tinder, not to talk of the station and the wool- shed.” “They sha’n’t suffer from my neglect, Mr. Heathcote.” “You have men about who mayn’t be so careful. The wind, such as it is, is coming right across from your place. If there were light enough, I could show you three or four patches where there has been fire within half a mile of this spot. There was a log burning there for two or three days, not long ago, which was lighted by one of our men.” “That was a fortnight since. There was no heat then, and the men were boiling their kettle. I spoke about it.” “A log like that, Mr. Medlicot, will burn for weeks sometimes. I’ll tell you fairly what I’m afraid of. There’s a man with you whom I turned out of the shed last shearing, and I think he might put a match down—not by accident.” “You mean Nokes. As far as I know, he’s a decent man. You wouldn’t have me not employ a man just because you had dismissed him?” “Certainly not; that is, I shouldn’t think of dictating to you about such a thing.” “Well, no, Mr. Heathcote, I suppose not. Nokes has got to earn his bread, though you did dismiss him. I don’t know that he’s not as honest a man as you or I.” “If so, there’s three of us very bad; that’s all, Mr. Medlicot. Good-night; and if you’ll trouble yourself to look after the ash of your tobacco it might be the saving of me and all I have.” So saying, he turned round, and made his way back to the horses. Medlicot had placed himself on the fence during the interview, and he still kept his seat. Of course he was now thinking of the man who had just left him, whom he declared to himself to be an ignorant, prejudiced, ill-constituted cur. “I believe in his heart he thinks that I’m going to set fire to his run,” he said, almost aloud. “And because he grows wool he thinks himself above every body in the colony. He occupies thousands of acres, and employs three or four men. I till about two hundred, and maintain thirty families. But he is such a pig that he can’t understand all that; and he thinks that I must be something low because I’ve bought with my own money a bit of land which never belonged to him, and which he couldn’t use.” Such was the nature of Giles Medlicot’s soliloquy as he sat swinging his legs, and still smoking his pipe, on the fence which divided his sugar-cane from the other young man’s run. And Harry Heathcote uttered his soliloquy also. “I wouldn’t swear that he wouldn’t do it himself, after all;” meaning that he almost suspected that Medlicot himself would be an incendiary. To him, in his way of thinking, a man who would take advantage of the law to buy a bit of another man’s land—or become a free-selector, as the term goes—was a public enemy, and might be presumed capable of any iniquity. It was all very well for the girls—meaning his wife and sister-in-law—to tell him that Medlicot had the manners of a gentleman and had come of decent people. Women were always soft enough to be taken by soft hands, a good-looking face, and a decent coat. This Medlicot went about dressed like a man in the towns, exhibiting, as Harry thought, a contemptible, unmanly finery. Of what use was it to tell him that Medlicot was a gentleman? What Harry knew was that since Medlicot had come he had lost his sheep, that the heads of three or four had been found buried on Medlicot’s side of his run, and that if he dismissed “a hand,” Medlicot employed him—a proceeding which, in Harry Heathcote’s aristocratic and patriarchal views of life, was altogether ungentleman-like. How were the “hands” to be kept in their place if one employer of labor did not back up another? He had been warned to be on his guard against fire. The warnings had hardly been implicit, but yet had come in a shape which made him unable to ignore them. Old Bates, whom he trusted implicitly, and who was a man of very few words, had told him to be on his guard. The German, at whose hut he had been in the morning, Karl Bender by name, and a servant of his own, had told him that there would be fire about before long. “Why should any one want to ruin me?” Harry had asked. “Did I ever wrong a man of a shilling?” The German had learned to know his young master, had made his way through the crust of his master’s character, and was prepared to be faithful at all points—though he too could have quarreled and have avenged himself had it not chanced that he had come to the point of loving instead of hating his employer. “You like too much to be governor over all,” said the German, as he stooped over the fire in his own hut in his anxiety to boil the water for Heathcote’s tea. “Somebody must be governor, or every thing would go to the devil,” said Harry. “Dat’s true—only fellows don’t like be made feel it,” said the German, “Nokes, he was made feel it when you put him over de gate.” But neither would Bates nor the German express absolute suspicion of any man. That Medlicot’s “hands” at the sugar-mill were stealing his sheep Harry thought that he knew; but that was comparatively a small affair, and he would not have pressed it, as he was without absolute evidence. And even he had a feeling that it would be unwise to increase the anger felt against himself—at any rate, during the present heats. Jacko had his pipe still alight when Heathcote returned. “You young monkey,” said he, “have you been using matches?” “Why not, Mr. Harry? Don’t the grass burn ready, Mr. Harry? My word!” Then Jacko stooped down, lit another match, and showed Heathcote the burned patch. “Was it so when we came?” Harry asked, with emotion. Jacko, still kneeling on the ground, and holding the lighted match in his hand, shook his head and tapped his breast, indicating that he had burned the grass. “You dropped the match by accident?” “My word! no. Did it o’ purpose to see. It’s all just one as gunpowder, Mr. Harry.” Harry got on his horse without a word, and rode away through the forest, taking a direction different from that by which he had come, and the boy followed him. He was by no means certain that this young fellow might not turn against him; but it had been a part of his theory to make no difference to any man because of such fears. If he could make the men around him respect him, then they would treat him well; but they could never be brought to respect him by flattery. He was very nearly right in his views of men, and would have been right altogether could he have seen accurately what justice demanded for others as well as for himself. As far as the intention went, he was minded to be just to every man. It seemed, as they were riding, that the heat grew fiercer and fiercer. Though there was still the same moaning sound, there was not a breath of air. They had now got upon a track very well known to Heathcote, which led up from the river to the wool-shed, and so on to the station, and they had turned homeward. When they were near the wool-shed, suddenly there fell a heavy drop or two of rain. Harry stopped and turned his face upward, when, in a moment, the whole heavens above them and the forest around were illumined by a flash of lightning so near them that it made each of them start in his saddle, and made the horses shudder in every limb. Then came the roll of thunder immediately over their heads, and with the thunder rain so thick and fast that Harry’s “ten thousand buckets” seemed to be emptied directly over their heads. “God A’mighty has put out the fires now,” said Jacko. Harry paused for a moment, feeling the rain through to his bones—for he had nothing on over his shirt—and rejoicing in it. “Yes,” he said; “we may go to bed for a week, and let the grass grow, and the creeks fill, and the earth cool. Half an hour like this over the whole run, and there won’t be a dry stick on it.” As they went on, the horses splashed through the water. It seemed as though a deluge were falling, and that already the ground beneath their feet were becoming a lake. “We might have too much of this, Jacko.” “My word! yes.” “I don’t want to have the Mary flooded again.” “My word! no.” But by the time they reached the wool-shed it was over. From the first drop to the last, there had hardly been a space of twenty minutes. But there was a noise of waters as the little streams washed hither and thither to their destined courses and still the horses splashed, and still there was the feeling of an incipient deluge. When they reached the wool-shed, Harry again got off his horse, and Jacko, dismounting also, hitched the two animals to the post and followed his master into the building. Harry struck a wax match, and holding it up, strove to look round the building by the feeble light which it shed. It was a remarkable edifice, built in the shape of a great T, open at the sides, with a sharp-pitched timber roof covered with felt, which came down within four feet of the ground. It was calculated to hold about four hundred sheep at a time, and was divided into pens of various sizes, partitioned off for various purposes. If Harry Heathcote was sure of any thing, he was sure that his wool-shed was the best that had ever been built in this district. “By Jimini! what’s that?” said Jacko. “Did you hear any thing?” Jacko pointed with his finger down the centre walk of the shed, and Harry, striking another match as he went, rushed forward. But the match was out as soon as ignited, and gave no glimmer of light. Nevertheless he saw, or thought that he saw, the figure of a man escaping out of the open end of the shed. The place itself was black as midnight, but the space beyond was clear of trees, and the darkness outside being a few shades lighter than within the building, allowed something of the outline of a figure to be visible. And as the man escaped, the sounds of his footsteps were audible enough. Harry called to him, but of course received no answer. Had he pursued him, he would have been obliged to cross sundry rails, which would have so delayed him as to give him no chance of success. “I knew there was a fellow about,” he said; “one of our own men would not have run like that.” Jacko shook his head, but did not speak. “He has got in here for shelter out of the rain, but he was doing no good about the place.” Jacko again shook his head. “I wonder who he was?” Jacko came up and whispered in his ear, “Bill Nokes.” “You couldn’t see him.” “Seed the drag of his leg.” Now it was well known that the man Nokes had injured some of his muscles, and habitually dragged one foot after another. “I don’t think you could have been sure of him by such a glimpse as that.” “Maybe not,” said the boy, “only I’m sure as sure.” Harry Heathcote said not another word, but getting again upon his horse, galloped home. It was past one when he reached the station, but the two girls were waiting up for him, and at once began to condole with him because he was wet. “Wet!” said Harry; “if you could only know how much I prefer things being wet to dry just at present! But give Jacko some supper. I must keep that young fellow in good humor if I can.” So Jacko had half a loaf of bread, and a small pot of jam, and a large jug of cold tea provided for him, in the enjoyment of which luxuries he did not seem to be in the least impeded by the fact that he was wet through to the skin. Harry Heathcote had another nobbler—being only the second in the day—and then went to bed. CHAPTER III. — MEDLICOT’S MILL. As Harry said, they might all now lie in bed for a day or two. The rain had set aside for the time the necessity for that urgent watchfulness which kept all hands on the station hard at work during the great heat. There was not, generally, much rest during the year at Gangoil. Lambing in April and May, washing and shearing in September, October, and November, with the fear of fires and the necessary precautions in December and January, did not leave more than sufficient intervals for looking after the water-dams, making and mending fences, procuring stores, and attending to the ailments of the flocks. No man worked harder than the young squatter. But now there had suddenly come a day or two of rest—rest from work which was not of itself productive, but only remedial, and which, therefore, was not begrudged. But it soon was apparent that the rest could be only for a day or two. The rain had fallen as from ten thousand buckets, but it had fallen only for a space of minutes. On the following morning the thirsty earth had apparently swallowed all the flood. The water in the creek beneath the house stood two feet higher than it had done, and Harry, when he visited the dams round the run, found that they were fall to overflowing, and the grasses were already springing, so quick is the all but tropical growth of the country. They might be safe, perhaps, for eight-and-forty hours. Fire would run only when the ground was absolutely dry, and when every twig or leaf was a combustible. But during those eight-and-forty hours there might be comparative ease at Gangoil. On the day following the night of the ride Mrs. Heathcote suggested to her husband that she and Kate should ride over to Medlicot’s Mill, as the place was already named, and call on Mrs. Medlicot. “It isn’t Christian,” she said, “for people living out in the bush as we are to quarrel with their neighbors just because they are neighbors.” “Neighbors!” said Harry; “I don’t know any word that there’s so much humbug about. The Samaritan was the best neighbor I ever heard of, and he lived a long way off, I take it. Anyway, he wasn’t a free-selector.” “Harry, that’s profane.” “Every thing I say is wicked. You can go, of course, if you like it. I don’t want to quarrel with any body.” “Quarreling is so uncomfortable,” said his wife. “That’s a matter of taste. There are people whom I find it very comfortable to quarrel with. I shouldn’t at all like not to quarrel with the Brownbies, and I’m not at all sure it mayn’t come to be the same with Mr. Giles Medlicot.” “The Brownbies live by sheep-stealing and horse-stealing.” “And Medlicot means to live by employing sheep-stealers and horse-stealers. You can go if you like it. You won’t want me to go with you. Will you have the baggy?” But the ladies said that they would ride. The air was cooler now than it had been, and they would like the exercise. They would take Jacko with them to open the slip-rails, and they would be back by seven for dinner. So they started, taking the track by the wool- shed. The wool-shed was about two miles from the station, and Medlicot’s Mill was seven miles farther, on the bank of the river. Mr. Giles Medlicot, though at Gangoil he was still spoken of as a new-comer, had already been located for nearly two years on the land which he had purchased immediately on his coming to the colony. He had come out direct from England with the intention of growing sugar, and, whether successful or not in making money, had certainly succeeded in growing crops of sugar-canes and in erecting a mill for crushing them. It probably takes more than two years for a man himself to discover whether he can achieve ultimate success in such an enterprise; and Medlicot was certainly not a man likely to talk much to others of his private concerns. The mill had just been built, and he had lived there himself as soon as a water-tight room had been constructed. It was only within the last three months that he had completed a small cottage residence, and had brought his mother to live with him. Hitherto he had hardly made himself popular. He was not either fish or fowl. The squatters regarded him as an interloper, and as a man holding opinions directly averse to their own interests—in which they were right. And the small free-selectors, who lived on the labor of their own hands—or, as was said of many of them, by stealing sheep and cattle—knew well that he was not of their class. But Medlicot had gone his way steadfastly, if not happily, and complained aloud to no one in the midst of his difficulties. He had not, perhaps, found the Paradise which he had expected in Queensland, but he had found that he could grow sugar; and having begun the work, he was determined to go on with it. Heathcote was his nearest neighbor, and the only man in his own rank of life who lived within twenty miles of him. When he had started his enterprise he had hoped to make this man his friend, not comprehending at first how great a cause for hostility was created by the very purchase of the land. He had been a new-comer from the old country, and, being alone, had desired friendship. He was Harry Heathcote’s equal in education, intelligence, and fortune, if not in birth—which surely, in the Australian bush, need not count for much. He had assumed, when first meeting the squatter, that good-fellowship between them, on equal terms, would be acceptable to both; but his overtures had been coldly received. Then he, too, had drawn himself up, had declared that Heathcote was an ignorant ass, and had unconsciously made up his mind to commence hostilities. It was in this spirit that he had taken Nokes into his mill, of whose character, had he inquired about it, he would certainly have heard no good. He had now brought his mother to Medlicot’s Mill. She and the Gangoil ladies had met each other on neutral ground, and it was almost necessary that they should either be friends or absolute enemies. Mrs. Heathcote had been aware of this, and had declared that enmity was horrible. “Upon my word,” said Harry, “I sometimes think that friendship is more so. I suppose I’m fitted for bush life, for I want to see no one from year’s end to year’s end but my own family and my own people.” And yet this young patriarch in the wilderness was only twenty-four years old, and had been educated at an English school! Medlicot’s cottage was about a hundred and fifty yards from the mill, looking down upon the Mary, the banks of which at this spot were almost precipitous. The site for the plantation had been chosen because the river afforded the means of carriage down to the sea, and the mill had been so constructed that the sugar hogsheads could be lowered from the buildings into the river boats. Here Mrs. Heathcote and Kate Daly found the old lady sitting at work, all alone, in the veranda. She was a handsome old woman, with gray hair, seventy years of age, with wrinkled face, and a toothless mouth, but with bright eyes, and with no signs of the infirmity of age. “This is gay kind of you to run so far to see an auld woman,” she said. Mrs. Heathcote declared that they were used to the heat, and that after the rain the air was pleasant. “You’re two bright lassies, and you’re hearty,” she said. “I’m auld, and just out of Cumberland, and I find it’s hot enough—and I’m no guid at horseback at all. I dinna know how I’m to get aboot.” Then Mrs. Heathcote explained that there was an excellent track for a buggy all the way to Gangoil. “Giles is aye telling me that I’m to gang aboot in a bouggey, but I dinna feel sure of thae bouggeys.” Mrs. Heathcote, of course, praised the country carriages, and the country roads, and the country generally. Tea was brought in, and the old lady was delighted with her guests. Since she had been at the mill, week had followed week, and she had seen no woman’s face but that of the uncouth girl who waited upon her. “Did ye ever see rain like that!” she said, putting up her hands. “I thought the Lord was sending his clouds down upon us in a lump like.” Then she told them that some of the men had declared that if it went on like that for two hours the Mary would rise and take the cottage away. Giles, however, had declared that to be trash, as the cottage was twenty feet above the ordinary course of the river. They were just rising to take their leave, when Giles Medlicot himself came in out of the mill. He was a man of good presence, dark, and tall like Heathcote, but stoutly made, with a strongly marked face, given to frowning much when he was eager; bright-eyed, with a broad forehead—certainly a man to be observed as far as his appearance was concerned. He was dressed much as a gentleman dresses in the country at home, and was th...